Antibiotic crisis ‘could wipe us all out before climate change does’
ANTIMICROBIAL resistance could soon kill at least ten million people per year and wipe out humanity ‘before climate change does’, it has been warned.
England’s chief medical officer, Professor Sally Davies, also cautioned the post-Brexit UK against importing meat or fish from countries that ‘misuse’ antibiotics while rearing livestock.
Antibiotic overuse in medicine and agriculture leads to bugs no longer responding to the drugs made to kill them. If these antibiotics stop working, a minor infection could prove fatal.
Prof. Davies told Sky News: ‘We humans are doing it to ourselves, but it could kill us before climate change does. It is a very important area and we are under-investing in sorting it out.
‘Antibiotics underpin modern medicine – you can’t have gut surgery, replacement hips, all sorts of surgery without risking infection. At least ten million could die every year if we don’t get on top of this.’
British government data shows that, since 2014, the UK has cut the amount of antibiotics it uses by more than 7% and sales of antibiotics for use in food-producing animals has dropped by 40%.
But the number of drug-resistant bloodstream infections increased by 35% between 2013 and 2017.
Asked about post-Brexit trade deals, Prof. Davies said: ‘There’s always a balance in a trade relationship between economics and standards, and this [UK] government has given a commitment to translate the European law... and stick to the standards we have.’
She also argued the UK ‘should not be importing beef or other animals where antibiotics have been misused and growth promotion is a misuse, in my book, because it leads to problems across the world’.